1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a guide member, an endless belt, a method of producing the endless belt, and an image forming apparatus that uses the endless belt.
2. Related Art
In electrophotographic image forming apparatuses, endless belts are used as intermediate transfer belts for transferring a toner image to a final transfer material using an electrophotographic process, and as a transfer material transport belt for transporting the final transfer material.
A running device containing an endless belt such as a photoreceptor belt, an intermediate transfer belt or a paper transport belt in an image forming apparatus is typically configured, for example, in the manner shown in FIG. 11, with an endless belt 1 stretched tightly around three rollers 3. One of these rollers 3 functions as the drive roller, and the other two rollers are driven rollers, and the endless belt 1 is designed to run between these rollers.
In these types of endless belt running devices, methods that have been proposed to prevent the belt from meandering from side to side include methods in which a flange is provided on the drive roller or the like, and methods in which, as shown in FIG. 12, a strap-shaped meander prevention rib member 2 that undergoes ready elastic deformation is provided on the inner surface on at least one side edge of the endless belt 1, and by bringing the edge of this rib member 2 into contact with a tapered guide surface of a guide roller 7, which is provided in a freely rotatable arrangement on the outside of a roller 3 that is driven by a rotational shaft 6, the travel of the endless belt 1 can be guided.
In the case of the rib member 2 described in the latter method, as can be seen in FIG. 13, which represents an enlargement of a region Z encircled by a dotted line in the vicinity of the rib member 2 in FIG. 12, a rib section 4 is bonded to the endless belt 1 using an adhesive section 5.